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As he came out into the lobby Archer ran across his friend Ned Winsett, the only one a what Janey called his "clever people" hos a little deeper than the average level of club and chop-house banter

He had caught sight, across the house, of Winsett's shabby round-shouldered back, and had once noticed his eyes turned toward the Beaufort box The two men shook hands, and Winsett proposed a bock at a little German restaurant around the corner Archer, as not in the et there, declined on the plea that he had work to do at home; and Winsett said: "Oh, well so have I for that matter, and I'll be the Industrious Apprentice too"

They strolled along together, and presently Winsett said: "Look here, what I'm really after is the name of the dark lady in that swell box of yours--with the Beauforts, wasn't she? The one your friend Lefferts seems so shtly annoyed What the devil did Ned Winsett ith Ellen Olenska's name? And above all, why did he couple it with Lefferts's? It was unlike Winsett to manifest such curiosity; but after all, Archer remembered, he was a journalist

"It's not for an interview, I hope?" he laughed

"Well--not for the press; just for hbour of mine--queer quarter for such a beauty to settle in--and she's been awfully kind tohis kitten, and gave hi hied, and was so sympathetic and beautiful that low dilated Archer's heart There was nothing extraordinary in the tale: any wohbour's child But it was just like Ellen, he felt, to have rushed in bareheaded, carrying the boy in her ar to ask who she was

"That is the Countess Olenska--a granddaughter of old Mrs Mingott's"

"Whew--a Countess!" whistled Ned Winsett "Well, I didn't know Countesses were so neighbourly Mingotts ain't"

"They would be, if you'd let theuness of the "clever people" to frequent the fashionable, and bothit

"I wonder," Winsett broke off, "how a Countess happens to live in our slum?"